International Business Travel Research Articles

Choices, Challenges, and Career Consequences of Global Work Experiences

Over the past 20 years, there has been increased interest in global forms of employment. Researchers have identified and investigated a number of global work experiences, including corporate and self-initiated expatriates as well as more novel forms of corporate global employees (flexpatriates, short-term assignees, and international business travelers). In this article, the authors review the empirical research that has investigated individual choices, challenges, and career consequences associated with the various types of global work. They summarize and synthesize this growing body of literature and then develop a taxonomy of global work experiences. Based on their review of this literature and their taxonomy, the authors outline an agenda for future research on global work experiences.

A global travelers' electronic health record template standard for personal health records: Figure 1

Tourism as well as international business travel creates health risks for individuals and populations both in host societies and home countries. One strategy to reduce health-related risks to travelers is to provide travelers and relevant caregivers timely, ongoing access to their own health information. Many websites offer health advice for travelers. For example, the WHO and US Department of State offer up-to-date health information about countries relevant to travel. However, little has been done to assure travelers that their medical information is available at the right place and time when the need might arise. Applications of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) utilizing mobile phones for health management are promising tools both for the delivery of healthcare services and the promotion of personal health. This paper describes the project developed by international informaticians under the umbrella of the International Medical Informatics Association. A template capable of becoming an international standard is proposed. This application is available free to anyone who is interested. Furthermore, its source code is made open.

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Toward Malaria Risk and Prevention Among Frequent Business Travelers of a Major Oil and Gas Company

Despite significant morbidity and mortality among business travelers due to malaria, very little has been published on knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) toward malaria risk. The aim of this study was to assess KAP among frequent international business travelers (FBT) and to identify recommendations for improving malaria prevention that could be applied to the wider FBT community in occupational health. A retrospective web-based survey was conducted in 2005 among self-registered FBT of an oil and gas company based in the Netherlands. The survey was completed by 328 of the 608 self-registered FBT (54%). Fifty-four percent of respondents had visited a high-risk area for malaria. Most respondents (96%) were experienced travelers; the majority (71%) sought health advice before their trip and made use of a company health resource. Fever was recognized as a malaria symptom by all FBT; travel to high-risk malaria areas was correctly identified by 96%, and 99% of these travelers adhered to use of adequate personal protective measures. The proportion of travelers carrying appropriate anti-malaria drug regimen was positively associated with receiving company advice among FBT traveling to high-risk destinations (RR = 2.10, 95% CI: 1.21-3.67), but not for those traveling to low- or no-risk destinations. Only 8% (14) of those going to a high-risk area were not carrying malaria prophylaxis. One in five of FBT traveling to no-risk areas were unnecessarily carrying malaria prophylaxis. The majority of KAP results were excellent. We postulate that a company culture with a strong focus on health, safety, security, and environment can positively contribute to high KAP scores. Notwithstanding the excellent findings, this study also provides a cautionary tale for company health functions against overprescribing of malaria prophylaxis. It demonstrates the need for constant review and audit of adherence to quality criteria.

Cultural intelligence's influence on international business travelers' stress

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine cultural intelligence's (CQ) influence on international business travelers' ability to deal with the strain caused by institutional distance (ID).Design/methodology/approachThe methodology begins with a literature review to establish a framework for discussion by bringing together international business travel, stress, distance, and CQ. A total of 841 participants from Sao Paulo Guarulhos International Airport were surveyed in order to test the hypotheses.FindingsResults reveal that CQ partially moderates the relationship between ID and travel and job strain.Research limitations/implicationsFurthermore, the research implies that an increase in CQ is not positive in all situations.Originality/valueThis is the first empirical study to examine CQ in the short‐term context of international business travel.

Information and Communication Technology and International Business Travel: Mobility Allies?

Like forecasts about the paperless office, technological solutions to the problem of international business travel continue to be deferred. As with the increased use of office paper, international business travel is defying predictions of its decline. There is growing evidence to suggest that business sectors which seem ideally placed to substitute information and communication technology (ICT) for travel, are actually generating more physical travel than other sectors. This paper develops a case study of the Irish software industry to exemplify why international travel is not diminishing in importance how and the ICT and business travel relationship is changing in this sector. The paper presents research findings that suggest that a cycle of substitution, generation and modification relationships have occurred as mobility interdependencies have developed.

Health and Well‐Being Factors Associated With International Business Travel

International travel by US business travelers is continuing to increase with the globalization of the economy. The objective of this study was to determine if the frequency and duration of international business travel is associated with differences in travelers' health and well-being. This study expands our limited knowledge of the impact of long-haul travel on healthy lifestyle choices and traveler's perceptions of their health and well-being. 12,942 unique health risk appraisal (HRA) records of US employees of a multinational corporation were analyzed according to self-reported (objective and subjective) travel history and lifestyle habits. Comparing 2,962 international travelers and 9,980 non-travelers, international business travel was significantly associated with a lower body mass index, lower blood pressure, excess alcohol consumption, sleep deprivation, and diminished confidence to keep up with the pace of work. This study demonstrated both positive and negative associations on the health risks and well-being of a large sample of US-based international business travelers from an US multinational company. This study identifies targeted areas for pretrip screening and counseling to proactively address potential negative effects of travel and may assist in the design of corporate travel health and employee assistance programs.

International business travel in the global economy * J. Beaverstock, B. Derudder, J. Faulconbridge and F. Witlox (eds)

It would be impossible to review this book without reference to the movie Up in the Air and corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham’s (played by George Clooney) love affair with the perks that accrue to a frequent business traveler. Ensconced in a cocoon of status, which allows him to bypass lines at airport security checks and access exclusive lounges, Bingham personifies a number of the topics contained within this timely and engaging book. Performing a sensitive business function that is ill-suited for video conferencing, Clooney’s character embraces business travel as both vocation and recreation but in so doing loses touch with any real domestic life. But transcending the entertainment value of the movie, this book provides a wide range of important and engaging insight on a central means by which global capitalism functions that hitherto has received little attention from scholars. Emerging from an international workshop at Ghent University in Belgium held in January 2008, this edited volume of 11 different approaches to the study of business travel provides a welcome answer to the relative lack of study on this important topic. Beginning with an introductory forward by Brian Graham, which deftly sketches out the key contours of contestation within airline networking and aircraft strategies, this book offers an important framework around which future research in this area can build. Most importantly it refines our understanding of the diversity of geographies within air travel. Although the uneven nature of airline networks is well established, this book shows that within this geography, there is yet more variegation (ranging from the scale of the city to the person) within the experience of air travel.

International business travel: some explorations

.International business travel is now an omnipresent feature of working life for many millions of people around the globe. Whatever the organizational reason, it is now the likelihood that many individuals are engaged in undertaking work outside of the formal workplace in an irregular pattern which has become an almost ordinary aspect of their working‐life. Such is the magnitude of international business travel that it is now highly significant for bringing multi‐million dollar expenditure to countries and the global airline and hotel sectors, and supporting an international business travel management industry. Yet, surprisingly, little has been written on the agency of international business travel, beyond vignettes of the organizational requirement for physical proximity. In this introduction (and special issue) we consider what further academic analyses of business travel must do to extend knowledge and understanding of the growth and use of travel in the twenty‐first century. The article is in five parts. First, we consider the function of international business travel in firms as part of strategies to tie‐together spatially distributed subsidiaries. Second, we unpack the modes and spaces of business travel. Third, we discuss the impacts of business travel on both the traveller, but also the environment. Fourth, we introduce the major arguments and contributions of the four articles in this special issue. Finally, we identify future research agendas that should develop existing theory and understanding of the compulsion for international business travel.

Malaria

For international business travelers, malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal vector-borne disease that is largely preventable with effective counseling and proper use of a prescribed antimalarial.

Malaria

For international business travelers, malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal vector-borne disease that is largely preventable with effective counseling and proper use of a prescribed antimalarial.

Corporate Ecologies of Business Travel in Professional Service Firms

International business travel has always been an important labour process in the accumulation of capital for the firm. It is surprising, therefore, that relatively little time has been devoted to the study of business travel, both as a facet of contemporary mobility and as an economic practice. In this article we review how existing literatures provide insights that can be used to understand the role of business travel as international labour mobility in the contemporary professional service economy. In doing so, we reach the conclusion that there seem to be at least two significant voids preventing a more sophisticated understanding from emerging. First, we suggest that international business travel needs to be studied not in isolation but instead as one component in a wider ecology of mobility which `produces' the global firm. Second, we argue that it is important to know more about the time-space dynamics of international business travel in terms of how spatial relations are produced and reproduced by different forms and geographies of travel. We make these arguments and explore their implications using data collected through interviews in advertising, architecture and legal professional service firms.We conclude by identifying a research agenda designed to allow a better understanding of business travel to emerge in corporate and mobility discourses.

Use of an Accelerated Immunization Schedule for Combined Hepatitis A and B Protection in the Corporate Traveler

Increased international business travel to moderate or high endemic areas of hepatitis A and B may leave many business travelers at risk for infection if not vaccinated. Many international business travelers depart for hepatitis A and B endemic areas within 2 months of the decision to travel. Many of these travelers do not seek pretravel medical advice and are unaware of the risks and modes of acquiring hepatitis A and B. Monovalent vaccines and a combined hepatitis A and B vaccine are available and can be administered on an accelerated schedule. Because many areas endemic for hepatitis A are also endemic for hepatitis B, accelerated administration of the combined vaccine can offer protection for many international business travelers destined for areas endemic for both diseases and should be part of corporate travel immunization programs.

Overview of Selected Infectious Disease Risks for the Corporate Traveler

International business travel to under-developed and developing countries has increased considerably over the past two decades. Most of these destinations are endemic to a variety of infectious diseases, many of which are associated with considerable morbidity, mortality, or both and the nonimmune, unprepared corporate traveler is at risk. Comprehensive pretravel consultation is essential to prevent travel-related illness. This review addresses some of the infectious diseases that can be acquired during international travel, including regions of endemicity, assessment of risk, and available means of prevention. In addition, we discuss data concerning current practices and attitudes of travelers, along with some of the issues surrounding the counseling of corporate travelers.

Changing patterns of global staffing in the multinational enterprise: Challenges to the conventional expatriate assignment and emerging alternatives

We argue that many MNCs continue to underestimate the complexities involved in global staffing and that organisations and academics must take a more strategic view of staffing arrangements in an international context. We suggest that the context for the management and handling of the international assignment has altered significantly, leading in some quarters to a fundamental reassessment of the contribution of, and prospects for, the international assignment as conventionally understood. We explore a variety of supply side issues, cost issues, demand side issues and career issues as triggers to this reassessment. Alongside the conventional expatriate assignment, we point to the emergence of a portfolio of alternatives to the traditional international assignment including short-term assignments, commuter assignments, international business travel and virtual assignments. In the context of these developments, we argue that a standardised approach to international assignments is untenable and that it is essential to develop HR policies and procedures that reflect differences in the various forms of emerging alternative international assignments and their associated complexities. Here recruitment and selection, training, reward, and occupational health and safety issues and implications are all explored.

The international business traveller: a neglected but strategic human resource

There has been considerable research over the past two decades into the various aspects of traditional expatriate assignments. However, this research has overlooked an important category of international operator: the international business traveller, also known popularly as globetrotter or frequent flier. In this paper, we report on the results of a study of ten Australian and Danish international business travellers (IBTs). The aim was to explore the roles and activities of IBTs and the factors, such as level of organizational support that may intervene in the performance of their roles. We conclude that IBTs often are a neglected resource, particularly in terms of skills and knowledge transfer.

MORE COSMOPOLITAN, NO LESS LOCAL

ABSTRACT International business travellers are sometimes described as a cosmopolitan elite, with a strong international orientation but a low preference for local involvement and local obligations. This article uses Swedish survey data to investigate these claims, by comparing the orientations of persons who frequently travel abroad at work with the orientations of other workers. Frequent international travellers generally have more cosmopolitan orientations than others, but the local ties are not significantly weaker among frequent travellers than among occasional travellers or non-travellers. In some respects, notably social networks and associational activities, international travellers tend in fact to be more involved than non-travellers in all the four examined spheres – locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Concerns among social theorists that highly mobile, locally disconnected elites are undermining social cohesion may therefore be exaggerated. Theoretically, the study suggests that localism and cosmopolitanism should not be treated as necessarily opposite and mutually exclusive phenomena, but that mobility in various forms may be used to combine local and cosmopolitan resources.

Globalization, co-operation costs, and wage inequalities

The falling cost of international business travel and communication motivates highlyskilled workers who live in developed countries to spend more of their time co-operating with less-skilled workers in developing countries. This tends to narrow the gap between developed and developing countries in the wages of less-skilled workers, but to widen the wage gap within developed countries between highly-skilled and less-skilled workers. The paper formalizes this mechanism and tests it on data for the United States and developing countries. The two effects on wage inequalities of greater co-operation of highly-skilled workers with workers in developing countries both seem quantitatively important.

Deep venous thrombosis associated with corporate air travel.

Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is commonly seen among bedridden and postoperative patients. Its association with travel may also make DVT an occupational health risk to otherwise healthy business travelers. We estimated the incidence of and risk factors for DVT among 8,189 World Bank employees and a subset of 4,951 international business travelers. Occurrence of DVT between 1995 and 1998 was determined using 1) medical insurance claims; 2) Workers' Compensation claims; and 3) intra-office E-mail solicitation followed by interview. For each insurance claim case, 10 controls were randomly selected from among World Bank employees insured during the same month and year as the case's claim was filed, and case-control analyses were performed to identify potential predictors or risk factors for DVT. Thirty individuals filed claims for DVT of the legs (annual incidence rate: 0.9 per 1,000 employees); three of these claims were filed within 30 days after a travel mission. Two employees reported DVT as a Workers' Compensation injury, and five staff with verified DVT participated in interviews. After controlling for age and gender, no association with any travel-related covariate was seen. Results of analyses considering all thrombophlebitis and thromboembolism followed the same pattern. The average annual incidence of DVT occurring within 30 days of mission among traveling staff ranged from 0.10 per 1,000 to 0.25 per 1,000 travelers, depending on the case-finding method. No association between DVT and travel was observed after adjustment for gender and age. These results, however, are preliminary, and due to the rarity of DVT, based on small numbers.

Suppurative Epididymo-orchitis and Chronic Prostatitis Caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei: A Case Report and Review

ple from developed countries is increasing because of expanding of international vacations and business travel. Uncommon and unrecognized exotic pathologies may be reported increasingly. Melioidosis is an anthropozoonosis caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei,which is endemic in Southeast Asia. Recently, it has been pinpointed as a potential bioterrorism agent.1 Its clinical presentation is various with acute, subacute,or chronic forms.2 Although the most frequent form is acute pulmonary infection, the most severe form of the disease is acute septicemic infection, with a high mortality rate, ranging from 40% with treatment to 90% without treatment.2 Different organs may be involved, such as the lungs, liver, spleen,3,4 skin, brain, bones,5 lymph nodes, eyes, and adrenal glands.6 Genitourinary forms are uncommon. We report a case of melioidosis presenting as suppurative epididymo-orchitis with chronic prostatitis in a patient after a trip to Myanmar. Case Report

On the Motivations of Business Travel: Evidence from an Australian Survey

This paper presents the results of a survey of international business travelers to and from Australia carried out at Sydney Airport in May 2003 to understand the motivations underlying business travel. Data gathered from a sample of 210 business travelers indicate that knowledge sharing is a very common motivation to undertake a business trip while boosting sales is the least common. Business trips emerge as a mechanism to access, develop and transfer knowledge internationally, and possibly affect a country's ability to innovate.